BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
